Deshmukh, co-founder and CEO of ElasticRun, talking about the startup’s business at a recent conference

Jeff Bezos has unknowingly become a style icon.

The Amazon founder and CEO made headlines over the summer after he was photographed on a glamorous European vacation with his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez. Bezos and Sanchez were seen arm-in-arm walking the streets of France's celebrity hotspot Saint Tropez and aboard David Geffen's $590 million superyacht with former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and model Karlie Kloss.

Bezos' fans couldn't help but notice that during this time, he was regularly seen sporting a pair of octopus print swimming trunks. The trunks, which are made by French designer Vilebrequin, were from one of its previous collections and cost $260, according to a company spokesperson. They were also previously available at Amazon.

After being seen on Bezos, shoppers' interest in the brand grew and new data shows that they were enthusiastically searching for these trunks online.

According to fashion search site Lyst, online shoppers have searched for these swimming trunks more than 4,000 times in the past three months, and the brand saw a 105% rise in page views during that time.

Because of this, the trunks made Lyst's ranking of the hottest menswear items in the most recent quarter, joining Nike's Air Jordan 1 Mid SE sneakers and Burberry's train-ticket print leather card case in the top 10 list.

In the time between setting up Amazon in the 1990s and becoming the world's richest person, worth $110 billion, Bezos has undergone a radical transformation of his image.

Famously, there were memes of "swole Bezos" that cropped up in 2017 after he unveiled his new toned look at a conference in Silicon Valley.

Almost instantly, images comparing his bookish look of 1998 to 2017 went viral with commenters saying how this reflected the increasing dominance of Amazon.

 

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With speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G, and latency up to 120 times lower, 5G is poised to revolutionize the tech industry.

Telecoms in 18 countries will roll out 5G networks by the end of 2019, which means the race to secure global 5G leadership is officially underway. Winning would allow the opportunity to shape the future of the telecommunications industry, and could come with more than a decade of competitive advantages.

As the biggest mobile market in the world, China is at the front of the pack of global 5G development. China is projected to have 460 million 5G connections by 2025, which would make it the largest 5G market worldwide. After largely missing the opportunity of the 3G and 4G eras, 5G leadership is a top priority for China.

In the 5G Snapshot: China report, Business Insider Intelligence breaks down the key components and advantages of China’s 5G mission, and provides summaries of the country’s 3 largest wireless operators.

This exclusive report can be yours for FREE today.

President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of Amazon in general and of CEO Jeff Bezos in particular — as well as the Washington Post, the Bezos-owned newspaper that has published much reporting critical of the president.

Reports indicate that Trump's opposition to Amazon went as far as the bidding process for the Pentagon's $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, which the Amazon Web Services cloud computing division was the favorite to win. 

Earlier this year, Trump had reportedly wanted to "scuttle" the JEDI bidding process over concerns that Amazon would get the deal. Even before that, Trump last year reportedly ordered former Defense Secretary James Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of the contract, according to an upcoming book. Indeed, back in August, Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, raised concerns that Trump would use JEDI as a means to punish his critics in the media. 

So when on Friday, the Department of Defense announced that Microsoft had scored the JEDI contract, the immediate reaction of many bystanders was to assume that the huge upset over AWS had everything to do with Trump. 

However, several industry experts and Wall Street analysts say that they believe any Trump factor in the JEDI decision was overrated, and that all signs point to Microsoft having won the deal on its own merits as a heavy hitter in the cloud computing space.

'I hesitate to say that Trump was the reason'

"I hesitate to say that Trump was the reason behind Amazon not winning this," James Bach, a federal spending analyst at Bloomberg LP, told Business Insider. "Microsoft was more than capable of winning this without any kind of influence."

At the same time, Bach said, it's definitely "atypical" for a president to get involved with this kind of government procurement contract at all.

Daniel Newman, founding partner and principal analyst at Futurum Research, told Business Insider that Trump's involvement with the deal does cast questions over the final result.

"You have two very very sound companies, and then you have all these extraneous factors like Trump...it's really disappointing that we couldn't see an award made strictly based upon what solution offered the best technology to meet the needs," Newman said.

Microsoft's advantage

Still, several of the experts we spoke with said that Microsoft, and its Azure cloud platform, is more than up to the task of helping the Pentagon modernize its IT infrastructure. 

"They had not only infrastructure that could take on Amazon's but they also had experience working in this legacy IT environment, so it makes sense that the DoD might choose Microsoft for that, because Microsoft has this ability to do the next gen IT migration and at the same time help them manage and rationalize their legacy footprint," Bach said. 

While Microsoft lacked the necessary capabilities to qualify for JEDI at the outset of the bidding process, experts said that the company has made great strides in closing its technology gap with Amazon Web Services — and all the while making itself more attractive to customers in regulated industries like the public sector.

"MSFT has worked hard to appeal to late adopting industries, such as government, healthcare, financial institutions. MSFT has been prudent in gaining compliance/governance certifications and improving security to win over these late adopters," Oppenheimer analysts said in a note to clients on Sunday. 

Politics still play a role

However, whether or not Trump himself played a role in the JEDI procurement process, some experts said that politics may still have factored into the decision to award it to Microsoft.

Putting aside Trump's personal stance, the retailer has come under fire from key Democrats like presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has said that tech titans like Amazon wield too much power and should be broken up.

"Politics likely played a key role as AMZN has been under government scrutiny from both the left and right," the Oppenheimer analysts said of the JEDI deal.

Additionally, after spending much of the last year fending off an ultimately-failed lawsuit from Oracle over the JEDI award process, Amazon's relationships with the DoD have been somewhat strained, Christopher Cornillie, a federal technology market analyst at Bloomberg Government, told Business Insider.

"[The] JEDI court battle made everyone aware of how aggressively Amazon was pursuing federal contracts. They spent millions a year on lobbying and strategically hired a number of former government officials they believed would give them an edge in upcoming procurements. This was on display with JEDI," Cornillie said.

A silver lining for Amazon

It's unlikely that the JEDI story ends here for Amazon.

Amazon on Friday was "still evaluating options," a person familiar told Business Insider. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said in a note to clients on Friday that his firm "fully" expected Amazon "and others" to challenge the JEDI decision in court. 

Oddly enough, however, at least one expert thinks that the shadow of Trump over the JEDI deal may end up actually helping Amazon Web Services in the long run. At least some arms of the government might feel a need to show that they're willing to choose the best technology, no matter who it comes from.

"That could mean that any government project that Amazon pursues might be similarly affected by Trump's dislike," Charles King, the president and principal analyst of Pund-IT, told Business Insider. "But it might also lead other agencies to treat Amazon leniently in order to demonstrate that they aren't being inappropriately swayed by the President."

Another silver lining, King said, is that even the possibility that there was a political motive for giving JEDI to Microsoft might actually "lend weight to whatever efforts that AWS might make to reverse or appeal the contract being awarded to Microsoft."

Microsoft scored a surprise victory over Amazon when the Pentagon late Friday evening announced the Redmond-based company as the winner of a controversial $10 billion cloud computing contract.

The contract – known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract – is a $10 billion deal to move the Department of Defense's sensitive data to the cloud.

As the leader in the cloud market, Amazon Web Services was considered the frontrunner. But now, experts say the win puts Microsoft – generally regarded as the No. 2 cloud provider – in the same league as the dominant AWS, but the company has some work to do to really live up to the terms of the contract.

AWS on Friday said it was "surprised by the conclusion." It has the highest security clearances of any cloud provider and a relationship with the government handling sensitive information. Also, AWS previously won a $600 million CIA contract in 2013 and has special service design for the CIA to handle classified information at the "Secret" level.

A source familiar with the situation said AWS is exploring its options. Those options could include filing a protest with the Government Accountability Office or a claim in the Court of Federal Claims.

As for Microsoft, experts say it's a major win.

When it comes to technology, Microsoft's JEDI contract win signals to the market that Azure has achieved parity with AWS in some respects, RBC Capital Markets Microsoft analyst Alan Zukin said. 

"It signals to the market Microsoft is no longer a runner-up and can be viewed as a leader in the category where they can surpass AWS in certain areas," Zukin said.

And if Microsoft can pull this off and show the Pentagon, and the world, that it can handle JEDI, it could have major ramifications for the company in its fight with Amazon in the cloud.

"It's a huge feather in the cap for Microsoft in terms of its presence in the cloud," Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives told Business Insider. "In some ways, it signals a new age in terms of [Microsoft] starting to significantly close the gap versus Amazon from a market share perspective. The fact that the Pentagon and DOD are putting their infrastructure on Microsoft's cloud, it speaks volumes. It's a black eye for Bezos and Amazon."

Is Microsoft ready?

Microsoft's win didn't come as a shock for Daniel Goure, senior vice president at the Lexington Institute. Just August, Microsoft scored a win with the $7.6 billion Defense Enterprise Office Solutions (DEOS) contract, which will see the Pentagon use Microsoft's Office software.

This added to the company's credibility in the public sector, Goure says — and now JEDI is another stamp of approval for Microsoft.

"Microsoft is a credible player in this area and met all of the basic requirements," he said. "Microsoft is not as big or sophisticated as Amazon, but is a credible No. 2 and for that reason alone had a shot."

Oppenheimer analysts in a research note said Microsoft helped make it case by improving securities and seeking out government business.

"[Microsoft] has worked hard to appeal to late adopting industries, such as government, healthcare, financial institutions. MSFT has been prudent in gaining compliance/governance certifications and improving security to win over these late adopters," the analysts wrote. "We believe the Pentagon JEDI contract validates the security and compliance posture of Azure, important to winning future enterprise and government deals."

Still, Microsoft's ability to fulfill the contract will depend on how quickly the Department of Defense migrates to the cloud, says Goure. The faster it goes, the more difficulty Microsoft might have in keeping up.

"Typically, government participants enter (contracts) slowly and migrate, at the start, only certain functions and applications," he said. "If the rate of this migration and adoption is reasonable, Microsoft will have no problem fulfilling it."

A lot of work to do

Still, Microsoft can't rest just yet.

Renee Murphy, a principal analyst at Forrester, said taking on the contract will mean practically building a new business for Microsoft. It has to take all the cloud tech it already offers, and make it up to the standards of an exacting customer like the DoD where it isn't already. 

"If this is they're way of saying, 'We want to get into this business,' they're putting a lot of money into this. It takes a lot of money and effort to get it done," Murphy said.

What's more, Amazon is still the only cloud provider with certified at Impact Level 6, the highest level of security clearance, necessary for storing Top Secret information. Microsoft's highest clearance is at Impact Level 5, at least so far. While this isn't necessarily a showstopper for Microsoft — the JEDI contract only requires IL-5 — it will likely want to undergo the intensive certification process involved in achieving IL-6 if it wants to show parity with Amazon.

"They're going to have to dedicate an awful lot of their time," Murphy said. "This is almost like creating an enterprise product line. The data you're generating on the logs is considered top secret and critical. What do you do for that? Are they physically ready for that kind of scrunity?"

Ultimately, Microsoft has "a lot of credibility in the space," William Blair analyst Jason Ader said. It's just a question of whether or not it has the right stuff to meet the needs of JEDI right this second.

"Do they have all the software and all the services? I don't know the answer to that," he said.

A 'feather in Microsoft's cap' and a 'black eye' for Bezos and Amazon

AWS is still the cloud computing leader when it comes to market share. Recent estimates from analyst firm Gartner puts Amazon's cloud market share at about 48 percent, more than three times the size of Microsoft Azure's 15.5 percent.

The contract has the potential to create follow-on business for Microsoft and convince potential customers who once overlooked Azure to take a second look, experts said.

"Ultimately, it's a crowning achievement for Nadella and Redmond to win what's not just $10 billion [contract] over the next decade," Ives said.  "There's a multiplier where this could ultimately trigger another $10 [billion], $15 [billion], $20 [billion] in cloud deals that go Microsoft's way."

Microsoft was generally regarded as a long shot, partly because of AWS' relationship with the CIA, but Microsoft US Regulated Industries President Toni Townes-Whitley in a statement pointed to the company's 40-year history of working with the Department of Defense.

"We brought our best efforts to the rigorous JEDI evaluation process and appreciate that DoD has chosen Microsoft," she said.

JMP analysts wrote in a research note that the contract will be a catalyst to help Microsoft build a public sector practice, much like the CIA contract helped AWS.

"The importance here is that much like AWS's $600 million CIA contract in 2013 helped the company build out its Public Sector practice, Azure's JEDI win is likely to do the same for Microsoft — and that's the longer-term concern for AWS in our view," the analysts wrote. "This comes at a time when multiple agencies — such as the CIA, where press reports suggest it is likely to significantly expand its use of cloud by 2021 — transition more fully to the cloud." 

Politics played a role, but tech is key

Industry watchers have speculated politics played a role in the decsiion.

Previously, President Donald Trump reportedly wanted to "scuttle" the bidding process for JEDI. Experts previously speculated that Trump's public feud with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — who also owns The Washington Post, which has published coverage critical of the president — might have worked against Amazon Web Services in the bidding process.

Microsoft, for its part, did "significant hand-holding with major players in the Pentagon and DOD" and Nadella spent considerable time on Capitol Hill to help Microsoft secure the deal, Ives said. The government would not select Microsoft if it didn't have the best platform for the job, he said.

"It was a nasty K Street battle between Microsoft and Amazon," Ives said, referring to the Washington, DC street known for playing host to lobbying firms. "Ultimately, technology is key."

A political activist is running for governor of California — so that he can run deliberately false ads on Facebook.

On Monday, Adriel Hampton announced on Twitter that he had formally filed the paperwork to run for the top office in California in the 2022 election in an attempt to draw attention to Facebook's controversial political advertising policies.

The San Francisco resident is practically unknown in politics with virtually no chance of winning. But that's besides the point. By filling out a few forms and becoming an official candidate for governor, Hampton has earned the right to spread lies and misinformation via Facebook ads, a loophole he contends is to open to anyone.

Earlier this month, Facebook exempted politicians' advertisements from its broader rules that ban falsehoods in ads — effectively giving the all-clear to politicians and candidates for public office to spread deliberate falsehoods on Facebook's advertising platform without repercussions. 

The decision has been intensely controversial, with Democrats in the US warning that it could impact the 2020 election, even as Zuckerberg defends the position on free speech grounds.

Hampton is now setting out to push the policy to its limits, by becoming a political candidate himself and paying for intentionally false political ads on Facebook.

Hampton, who also works in marketing, is something of a provocateur. He has already run one false ad on Facebook in recent weeks, which falsely claimed that Republican senator Lindsey Graham supports the Green New Deal. Facebook blocked that ad, but now he plans to run further false ads, using his political candidate status as a shield. 

"It's incredibly simple. Anyone can do it. Facebook is f**ked. Or, we are going to win — they will have to change the policy," he told Business Insider.

His actions represent a fresh assault on Facebook's ad policy, which is facing increasingly widespread criticism. On Monday, The New York Times also reported that more than 250 Facebook employees had signed on to an internal letter calling on Facebook to fact-check political ads and make a number of other changes. 

"I have been a Facebook advertiser for more than a decade, off and on. I've always had concerns about the platform, historically, but I think that its advertising has a lot of power, particularly in the political arena where people make decisions very emotionally," Hampton told Business Insider in an interview. "I just think that Donald Trump, and any politician should be held to the same rule as you or I — or except that as of today, I have the golden ticket. I can do whatever I want."

He shrugged off the concern that his ads could further damage democracy, saying: "I'm worried about fighting fire with fire, I'm worried about the policy." His total ad spend will only ever be a tiny fraction of Donald Trump's, he added.

It's not clear what Facebook's response will be once Hampton launches his new ads, and a spokesperson for the company did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a June deposition that he wishes the electric-car maker's Model 3 sedans were less expensive. The transcript of the deposition was obtained by PlainSite, an organization that advocates for transparency in the US judicial system.

"I wrote in 2006 the master plan for Tesla and step three was an affordable car, at least reasonably affordable. It's not as affordable as we would like," Musk said of the Model 3.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At the time of publication, the Model 3 is listed at $39,490 on the Tesla website. The company had previously included a trim that started at $35,000 but removed it from its website in April, saying customers could order it only by phone or in one of the company's stores. A few weeks after the move, Musk said customers hadn't shown much interest in the $35,000 Model 3.

"I mean, our goal, as we've been very clear about from the beginning of the company, is to make our cars as affordable as possible. And we felt it was important to offer the $35,000 Model 3," Musk said during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call. 

"We see very few people actually taking us up on that $35,000 offer, but it is there and will remain there," he added.

The first deliveries of the $35,000 Model 3, which happened in April, were a landmark for Tesla. The company says its mission is to "accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy," and in a 2006 blog post, Musk described one of Tesla's long-term objectives as using the proceeds from high-end electric cars to fund the development of affordable models.

Musk would later frame the Model 3 as the fulfillment of that goal, and the hundreds of thousands of preorders Tesla received for the Model 3 suggested demand for electric vehicles extended beyond early adopters willing to pay luxury prices.

Tesla began delivering high-end versions of the Model 3 in July 2017 but struggled to hit production targets for the next year amid excessive automation at its Fremont, California, assembly plant. As the company smoothed out its production process, Musk said it needed more time to make the $35,000 Model 3 profitably.

Musk's June deposition was part of a lawsuit filed by Tesla shareholders alleging that the members of Tesla's board of directors, which included Musk at the time, acted in their own best interests, rather than in those of Tesla's investors, when they approved Tesla's $2.6 billion acquisition of the solar-panel company SolarCity in 2016.

Elon Musk Deposition - Sola... by Bryan Logan on Scribd

 

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If you're wasting too much time on Facebook or you're tired of getting notifications on your iPhone, or both, just delete the Facebook app off your phone. 

It couldn't be any easier to do so, you just swipe to the screen with the Facebook logo, hold a finger down on the app until it starts wiggling, tap the little "X" at the corner of the app (or tap "Rearrange apps" and then the "X" if you're running iOS 13), then hit "Delete" on the popup window to confirm the move.

However, if you are done with Facebook altogether, including the mobile app and full site on your computer, you can rather quickly delete your Facebook account using the mobile app. 

Here's how, in quite a few steps, which can change from time to time with updates. 

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

How to delete your Facebook account on an iPhone using the Facebook mobile app

1. Launch the Facebook app on your phone and then tap the three parallel lines at the bottom right corner.

2. Tap "Settings & Privacy" at the bottom of the list, and then "Settings."

3. Scroll down and tap "Account Ownership and Control."

4. Tap "Deactivation and Deletion."

5. Select "Delete Account" by tapping the dot beside that option, then hit the blue "Continue to Account Deletion" button.

6. Scroll down and tap "Delete Account" and then confirm the deletion with your password, then one more tap.

And don't worry, if you change your mind within 30 days, you can simply log into your Facebook account to stop it from being forever purged from the internet.

Technology and marketing entrepreneur and investor Chris Cunningham has recruited a group of media and tech executives to help startups get off the ground.

Cunningham cofounded mobile advertising firm Appssavvy before holding senior roles at location data firm Unacast and mobile advertising company ironSource.

Five years ago, he started C2 Ventures to angel invest in startups like Arbor and credit card company Petal at the pre-seed and seed rounds, using his own startup background to help new companies. Now, he's applying that model more broadly, raising $10 million for a new fund backed by media and tech veterans who will also advise founders.

The new fund, named C2V Capital Partners, has raised more than $5 million and seeks to raise $10 million by the end of the year, said Cunningham. Its 25 investors include senior execs and founders from marketing, media and technology companies:

Matt Olivo will help run the fund as partner, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

Cunningham wants to invest in non-adtech companies

C2V Capital Partners plans to make eight or nine investments per year, with an average investment of $150,000 to $250,000, Cunningham said. Half of the fund will go towards early rounds of funding at startups with the other half set aside for follow-up rounds.

Cunningham said that he considers the fund to be a generalist firm but is particularly interested in martech, direct to consumer, wellness and travel companies. Despite his background in adtech, Cunningham said he's not interested in advertising-based startups because they often lack recurring revenue.

"I see an adtech company relying on an agency holding company to support their revenue targets," he said. "A SaaS business gets repeatable, reoccurring revenue from other publishers and media companies — the revenue is sticky."

C2V Capital Partners has invested in four companies:

Cunningham said the fund plans to invest in two other companies this year, which he wouldn't name. One makes software to change the construction business, and the other helps automobiles solve for clean-technology issues.

The LPs will also advise the startups and create marketing material and host events for startups, similar to the work that Cunningham has done for his own investments like Narrative, a data startup he created a video series for.

Complex's Antoniello said a lot of investment firms talk about doing more than raise money for companies, but Cunningham has a track record to back up his approach.

"There's a lot of people out there talking about how they're going to bring a very talented roster of people with different perspectives and help you through downturns, thought process or connections. There are very few who actually do that," Antoniello said.

Cunningham is banking on his network to scale his investments

Patrick O'Leary, founder and CEO of boostr, said that Cunningham's experience working at startups sets him apart from traditional tech investors like Silicon Valley's Sand Hill Road.

"It can be a pretty demoralizing process for founders to raise money," he said. "Chris was a breath of fresh air."

Beam cofounder Matt Lombardi said he cold-emailed Cunningham about a previous company and kept in touch with Cunningham when launching Beam, leading C2V Capital Partners to invest in the brand's recent $5 million seed round. This month, Beam opened a pop-up shop in New York that Cunningham stopped by.

"I liked his experience as an entrepreneur and taking that knowledge to help other companies," Lombardi said. "Chris is such a force of energy and positivity mixed with strategic thinking — he has a very good network of people."

Along with a quiet reveal of its new AirPods Pro, Apple is rolling out on Monday the latest version of its mobile operating system — and it comes with even more improvements to the iPhone 11's excellent camera.

iOS 13.2 includes Apple's "Deep Fusion" AI software that the company said "uses advanced machine learning to do pixel-by-pixel processing of photos, optimizing for texture, details and noise in every part of the photo."

In a sentence, this means the iPhone 11's cameras should supposedly take even crisper, clearer, and overall better photos than it has been already. 

Indeed, the iPhone 11 is only barely bested by the Pixel 4 in my camera shootout comparison. Sometimes it took better photos, sometimes it didn't. In the end, it was the iPhone 11's versatility of regular, zoomed, and ultra-wide cameras that beat out Google Pixel 4, which only comes with a regular and a zoomed camera. 

I still need to try this Deep Fusion feature with the iPhone 11 to see what kind of improvements it brings. Any more improvements over the status quo would surely solidify the iPhone 11-series as the best smartphone camera of 2019 and probably well into 2020.

Of note, the Deep Fusion camera update in iOS 13.2 will only work with Apple's A13 chip. That is to say: only the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max will get the Deep Fusion update, as they're the only Apple devices that run on the A13 chips so far. 

Marc and Lynne Benioff know how to throw a party.

The billionaire couple hosted the fourth annual Rebels With a Cause Gala on Thursday in a Santa Monica office park. The event benefited research at USC's Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine. Ellison — a close friend and former mentor of Benioff's — was there alongside Ashton Kutcher and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Keep reading to take a look inside the event, which is held every third year and always benefits cancer research.